NEWSLETTER-2017

331 PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION Confidentiality Obligation As clearly laid down in Article 75.2 of the Labor Law, “The em- ployer is obliged to use their employees’ information in accordance with the principles of fairness and law, and not to disclose the con- fidential information in case the employee has fair advantage.” The LPPD has placed an express consent 3 rule through this regulation and has begun to seek an express consent to acquire, process and transmit the data and granted a great importance to this consent. Within this context, the employer shall not share data to the third party without the consent of the employee anymore, and without exception, s/he shall keep the information secret without any subjective evaluation 4 . Enlightenment Requirement The employers or the persons they authorize are obliged to inform the employees and the candidates while collecting personal data with regard to the method and legal reasons for collection, the place where the data will be retained, the persons who have access to the data, and to whom this data might be transferred. In addition, upon their em- ployees’ and candidates’ requests, the employers must enlighten them about where they used, and to whom they transferred, any personnel data. Within this scope, the employers have to correct the wrong and/ or incomplete information and keep the records updated. Data Transfer Abroad In multi-national companies, if foreign shareholders have access to data kept by companies, these countries shall be announced to em- ployees and candidates, and a written statement to release such data shall be obtained from them. The LPPD also seeks special assessments of the target country when personal data is transferred. In addition, the relevant countries should be safe, otherwise the parties should ensure that the data is in secure, and the Board of Protection of Personal Data (“Board”) shall give permission within this scope. In the upcoming 3 For detailed information please see: http://www.erdem-erdem.av.tr/publications/ law-post/personal-data-protection-under-turkish-and-european-legislation--ii/ (Accessed on 01.08.2017). 4 Başalp, Nilgün, Kişisel Verilerin Korunması ve Saklanması, Ankara 2004.